Laura Haviland’s statue is a Michigan city’s landmark

Raisin Township and all of Lenawee County in Michigan continue to embrace pioneer woman Laura Smith Haviland for her contributions to the Underground Railroad, before and after the Civil War.

She aided more than a thousand enslaved people to escape bondage…and then assisted countless more to establish their lives as freedmen after emancipation. 

In the Lenawee County seat of Adrian, a statue memorializes Laura Haviland, who was affectionately called “Aunt Laura.”

 

An Adrian city government spokesperson said: “Laura Haviland is probably the best-known and most-admired person who has ever lived in Lenawee County.” 

“Mrs. Haviland’s life was dedicated to helping others. She was a teacher, a nurse, a missionary, an abolitionist, a humanitarian, a suffragette, a social reformer and a mother.”

 

Laura Haviland died in 1898 at age 89. A Haviland Memorial Association formed to advance the idea of erecting a monument to preserve the legacy of Laura Haviland. 

Laura’s statue was unveiled in 1909 on the lawn of city hall. Chiseled from 10 tons of white granite, the monument stands 9 feet, 3 inches tall. The sculpture depicts Aunt Laura seated on a chair, holding her autobiography, “A Woman’s Life-Work: Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland.” 

She is dressed in traditional Quaker garb including a bonnet with a bow and ribbon. On the pedestal is the inscription: “A Tribute to a Life Consecrated to the Betterment of Humanity.”

 

Below Laura, a drinking fountain was designed into the statue base, with the biblical verse from Matthew: “I was thirsty and ye gave me drink.”

 

Originally, there was a manhole near the statue where blocks of ice could be put on the water pipes in summer to cool the water. Kids who rode their bikes to the library, located adjacent to city hall, would often pause, hop off and drink from the fountain. We would talk to Aunt Laura. She would give us a wink…or so it seemed. 

Dan Cherry, a local historian, said the Laura Haviland statue remains hallowed ground, “a reminder of her life works both local and afar.”

 

In 2018, Laura Haviland was enshrined in the National Abolition Hall of Fame in Peterboro, N.Y. The museum showcases efforts and actions by Americans who fought against slavery. 

Located near Syracuse, the museum is contained within a historic Presbyterian church that hosted the inaugural meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society in 1835.

 

Laura Haviland is one of just 28 abolitionists who have been honored as inductees. Dr. Milton C. Sernett, a history professor at Syracuse University, said: “Laura Haviland’s rich history needs to be illuminated.” 

“Everywhere that Laura Smith Haviland traveled, she was exposed to danger,” he wrote. “So many people recognized her…her brave deeds…her genius in securing safety for fleeing slaves when she was confronted and thwarted by irate slave hunters and slave owners.”

 

Dr. Sernett said Laura Haviland’s “status and prominence in the abolition movement” resulted in a $3,000 bounty placed on her head by a Tennessee tavern owner who was enraged by Laura Haviland’s “insolence” and attempts to “steal his slaves.” 

Laura Haviland made her position clear: “I would not…become instrumental in returning one escaped slave to bondage. I firmly believe…all men are created free and equal, and that no human being has a right to make merchandise of others born in humbler stations and place them on a level with horses, cattle and sheep, knocking them off the auction-block to the highest bidder, sundering family ties and outraging the purest and tenderest feelings of human nature.” 

She was a feisty one, that Aunt Laura.

Watch your step…to avoid ‘becoming your parents’

There’s an old show business saying attributed to comedian Eddie Cantor: “It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.” That pretty much describes the “career path” of actor Bill Glass, who stars as Dr. Rick in the television commercials for Progressive Insurance.

 

You know him as a life coach character. He is dedicated to ensuring that his self-help group participants avoid turning into their parents. The tagline is: “Progressive can’t save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto with us.”

 

Now, there’s even an entire book (published in 2021) that is being promoted by Progressive. It’s entitled “Dr. Rick Will See You Now: A Guide to Un-Becoming Your Parents.”

 

The creative genius behind the ad campaign is Mike Sullivan of Arnold Worldwide, a Boston-based advertising agency. An alumnus of Boston University, Sullivan was interviewed by Mara Sassoon, a senior writer at the school. 

“It all started with what we call the ‘parentamorphosis’ campaign. We figured out a strategy around this grownup shift that happens when you buy a house, and how you turn into your parents,” Sullivan said.

 

The ad agency put Glass “in a sweater vest that would make Mr. Rogers proud. His improv, and the way he owned that character with that sort of faux guru vibe, was amazing,” Sullivan said. “There was so much comedy just beneath the surface, but the exterior was such a perfect blend of sincerity and also the tropes of that vanity doctor thing – there was a Dr. Phil element.”

 

Dr. Rick has calmly counseled his group on airport behavior, tsk-tsking the thought of using paper boarding passes. Dr. Rick has coached his clients to refrain from chatting up strangers in elevators. Dr. Rick had advised the group members to de-clutter their homes and remove an excessive collection of throw pillows on their sofas.

 

In a recently aired segment, Dr. Rick’s group encounters a contemporary salad bar that offers more than one kind of lettuce – imagine that. 

“To me, success in advertising isn’t just about winning awards,” Sullivan said. “While those are great, it’s really about tapping into culture and earning the brand a way into the conversation.” 

Dr. Rick was a “Jeopardy!’ television quiz show question in 2021. “That’s an incredibly rewarding nod from culture,” Sullivan said. 

Glass is from Arlington Heights, Ill., near Chicago. Now in his early 50s, Glass attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence and studied journalism, but left school after five years and a bit shy of earning a degree to move to Los Angeles and seek his fortune. 

He’d been around the block a time or two, landing a lot of minor comedic roles in films and in television shows. 

Alex Healey, who writes about the insurance industry, asked Glass about Progressive’s Dr. Rick commercials. 

“I think people are laughing at themselves. They’re laughing at their parents a little bit,” Glass said. “I call it ‘triple regeneration.’” 

“The kids laugh when the parents are acting like the grandparents, the parents laugh when they’re starting to act like their parents, and the grandparents are laughing that their children behind them are starting to turn into them. I’m getting a kick out of the fact that it’s so relatable to every sort of chapter of a family.” 

Glass told Healy his favorite line is: “If you woke up early, no one cares.” 

“It’s a fun one for me,” Glass said, “because it reminds me of my dad who was always up early.”

Underground Railroad’s ‘superintendent’ was a woman

In the mid-1800s, America’s Underground Railroad had a “superintendent.” She was Laura Smith Haviland, who lived on a farm in Raisin Township within Lenawee County, Mich., near Adrian.

 

Laura Haviland earned the honorary title of superintendent because she made it her life’s mission to help enslaved people attain freedom, wrote author Jacqueline L. Tobin, an Underground Railroad historian. During Laura Haviland’s lifetime, she helped free freeing thousands of slaves. 

The Underground Railroad grew to prominence in the 1830s as a secret network that was organized to help slaves travel north into Canada. It was called a railroad because the members used railroad terms. The “passengers” were guided by “conductors” from one “station” to another.

 

Laura Haviland, and her husband Charles Haviland, Jr., were devout Quakers who moved from Lockport, N.Y. (north of Buffalo), in 1829 to join her parents and other Quaker families who had settled in a rural section of the Michigan Territory along the River Raisin. 

The Quakers near Adrian began to gather for religious purposes in 1831, and Laura’s father, Rev. Charles Smith, became the first Quaker minister at the Raisin Valley Friends Meetinghouse, built as a place of worship in 1835. 

The majority of Quakers “condemned slavery as brutal and unjust.” Laura Haviland was deeply influenced by the writings of John Woolman, a well-known Quaker abolitionist, who believed “slaveholding was inconsistent with the Christian religion.” 

In her autobiography, published in 1882, Laura Haviland wrote: “The pictures of these crowded slave-ships, with the cruelties of the slave system after they were brought to our country often affected me to tears.” 

Sources said that the Haviland homeplace became Michigan’s first Underground Railroad station, hiding runaway slaves on the family farm. 

Laura Haviland shared an anti-slavery bond with a dear friend, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, who had moved to Raisin Township in 1830 from Philadelphia, Pa. At a young age, Elizabeth Chandler began writing prose and poetry advocating universal emancipation.

 

Together, Laura and Elizabeth formed Michigan’s first anti-slavery society in 1832. Following a bout with fever, Elizabeth Chandler died in 1834 at age 26. Laura Haviland promised to carry the torch for the abolition of slavery forward in memory of her dear friend. 

In 1837, Laura and Charles Haviland founded a “manual labor school...designed for indigent children,” which was later known as the Raisin Institute of Learning. At the Havilands’ insistence, the school was open to all children, “regardless of race, creed or sex.” It was the first racially integrated school in Michigan. By the following year, the school expanded to accommodate 50 students. 

A calamity occurred in 1845 when an epidemic of erysipelas (a bacterial infection of the skin) killed six members of Laura Haviland’s family, including both her parents, her husband and her youngest child. Laura also fell ill but survived. 

At 36, Laura Haviland was a widow with seven children to support, a farm to run and the Raisin Institute to manage. A lack of funds forced the closing of the school in 1849. But she would persevere. 

In 1851, Laura Haviland helped organize the Refugee Home Society in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, which assisted in settling fugitive slaves. Later, she and a daughter, Anna Haviland Camburn, taught in schools founded for African-American children in Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio. 

By 1856, she returned home to Michigan with sufficient funds to reopen the Raisin Institute. The institute would close again in 1864, however, when staff and students enlisted to fight with the Union in the Civil War. 

The war opened a new chapter in the abolition movement for Laura Smith Haviland.

Underground Railroad extended well into Michigan

Michigan was near the end of the line for the Underground Railroad, a network of safe places organized that helped people who were fleeing enslavement in the 1800s. Michigan has 34 documented sites that served as “depots or stations” along the railroad. 

The Michigan History Center, a unit of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, reported: “There are endless accounts about this secret network that aided thousands of people on their journey to freedom. ‘Conductors’ hid freedom seekers in their homes and barns during the day. At night, freedom seekers would go to a depot in the next town.” 

“For many, Detroit was the last stop for freedom seekers before making their way to a new life in Canada,” according to the history center spokesperson.

 

Some of the earliest freedom seekers may have been hidden in the New Holland Inn, located in Oakland County, Mich., near the community of South Lyon, about midway between Lansing and Detroit. The Oakland County Historic Commission is on a mission to find out for sure. 

The New Holland Inn opened in 1831 as a stagecoach stop for weary travelers six years before Michigan became a state (in 1837).

 

The founder of the tavern was Russell Alvord of Rochester, N.Y., who attained a 40-acre land grant from President Andrew Jackson to establish an inn along an important trail in the Northwest Territory. (Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, served from 1829-1837). 

Alvord designed and laid out the village of New Hudson. He and his wife, Eleanor Freeman Alvord, had five children. The Alvords were known to be sympathetic toward the abolitionists, and it’s entirely likely that the family participated in the Underground Railroad. 

The New Hudson Inn is solidly built out of 18” sewn timbers and hardwood held together with wooden pegs. “This rudimentary but functional frontier building” contains a hidden indoor staircase leading to an upper level of the old inn.

 

The inn’s webmaster wrote: “Above the main room of the tavern is a secret room that possibly hid runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. As escaped slaves would come through quickly and quietly, an occasional item would get left behind in the upper room hideaway.” 

Artifacts and items of clothing are on display for tavern patrons to view. 

Tracy Ann Ritter, the self-appointed historian on staff at the New Hudson Inn, shared an experience from a visiting psyche. “She told us not to close off the stairway opening or to remove the old bathtub up there. To do so would bring economic ruin to the business.” 

The owners aren’t going to change a thing, Ritter said. “We are all looking forward to the tavern’s 200-year birthday in 2031.” 

The county historic commission is also pursuing a roadside historic marker for the New Hudson Inn. 

Today, the bar and grill is famous as “Michigan’s oldest continuously operating tavern.” The New Hudson Inn is widely acclaimed for “serving the best hamburgers in the state, a spectacular array of half-pounders.”

 

The best parking spots outside are reserved for motorcycles. Come for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday and enjoy freshly baked doughnuts “on the house.” 

The place has loads of loyal fans, like Dave H. of West Bloomfield Township, Mich., who wrote: “I love the Huddy! It’s a gem for food and drinks. It looks like a biker bar, but don’t be afraid to go in and grab a seat. They offer a lot of great events, entertainment, and it’s a lively scene. Food is great; burgers are huge, and you get a pretty good value for what you pay.”

 

‘Cactus Jack’ Garner also appears in JFK legacy

Texans gather every year on Nov. 22 to toast the birthday of John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner and to memorialize John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), who died on Nov. 22, 1963. These two pillars of American governmental leadership are forever linked in U.S. history.

Garner served as vice president for the first eight years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration from 1933-1941.

 

Garner was at his home in Uvalde, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963, celebrating his 95th birthday with a bunch of folks, when a telephone call came in at 10:15 a.m. from a swanky hotel in Fort Worth. President Kennedy was on the line. He wanted to express his personal birthday wishes to Cactus Jack.

Kennedy said he regretted that he could not attend the birthday bash…he had to ride in a motorcade in Dallas.

 

A huge supporter of President Kennedy, Garner mentored fellow Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was Kennedy’s vice president.

 

Garner kept a framed photo of JFK in his living room in plain view of a pair of television sets where Cactus Jack could watch two Major League Baseball games at the same time.

Garner said he felt that President Kennedy, who was 46 years old in 1963, might turn out to “be one of the great presidents of this country.” On that historic phone call, Garner was overheard saying: “You’re my president, and I love you. I hope you stay in there forever.”

More than two hours later, President Kennedy was shot in the head about 12:30 p.m. by assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and died at a Dallas hospital at 1 p.m. 

When word reached Uvalde that Kennedy had been killed, Garner family members said Cactus Jack was “shaken badly.” 

Kennedy admired Garner, a “cigar-chomping master persuader and negotiator,” who steered “New Deal” legislation through Congress early in Roosevelt’s administration. These programs were designed to rescue the nation from the grips of the “Great Depression.” 

Garner said he was glad to leave office in 1941 and return to Uvalde. He once said: “Worst damnfool mistake I ever made was letting myself be elected vice president. Should have stuck with my old chores as Speaker of the House. I gave up the second most important job in the government for one that didn’t amount to a hill of beans. I spent eight long years as Mr. Roosevelt’s spare tire.” 

Dr. Patrick L. Cox, a Texas historian, said irony is found in the knowledge that Garner was the first vice president “who made things happen. Garner revolutionized the position from figurehead to vital member of the executive branch.”

 

One of Garner’s accomplishments was the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, which led to the creation of rural cooperatives. The Texas State Historical Society reported that 2% of Texas farms had electricity in 1936; by 1965, only 2% of farms didn’t.

As a member of Congress for 30 years, Garner was notorious for his poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking lifestyle. 

In Uvalde, he continued those habits. Freelance writer Anne Dingus quoted Cactus Jack as saying: “I’m living a good Christian life. I don’t get drunk but once a day.”

 

On his farm, Garner raised sheep and grew pecans. Garner was an outdoorsman who enjoyed to fish and hunt. 

Dingus also reported: “At age 69, Garner shot an eight-point buck on a hunting trip and lugged it back to camp himself. He habitually retrieved beer bottles thrown aside by fellow hunters so he could redeem them for cash.” 

That was Cactus Jack. He died two weeks before his 99th birthday on Nov. 7, 1967.

Vice President Garner would say: ‘It’s 12 o’clock somewhere’

John Nance Garner of Uvalde, Texas, was America’s “New Deal” vice president. Operating behind the scenes, he pushed through federal legislation beginning in 1933 that propelled President Franklin D. Roosevelt into the national limelight.

 

Garner was known as “Cactus Jack.” It was a nickname he “earned” while serving as a young buck state legislator in Texas. He had introduced a bill in 1901 to name the prickly pear cactus as the official Texas state flower. 

The prickly pear cactus – technically classified as both a fruit and a vegetable – was prevalent in Garner’s district that included Uvalde and the Texas Hill Country River Region.

He believed the spring blossoms on a prickly pear cactus were more beautiful than an orchid. Some folks said the flower was the original “yellow rose of Texas.”

 

Historians say Garner became rather prickly himself during his eight-year stint as America’s vice president.

 

Garner once questioned his own sanity: What made him give up his chair as Speaker of the House of Representatives to become vice president? He viewed the office as “a no man’s land somewhere between the legislative and executive branch,” wrote author Bascom Timmons.

 

Dr. Patrick L. Cox, a Texas historian, said Garner also commented that the office of the vice president “is not worth a quart of warm spit.” Garner complained that he used a different four-letter word, but “those pantywaist writers wouldn’t print it the way I said it.” 

Garner enjoyed smoking cigars and drinking whiskey with members of Congress. He was prone to announce to his friends, “It’s twelve o’clock somewhere,” which meant it was time to open the bar, wrote Ray Hill of The Knoxville (Tenn.) Focus, an online news source. 

Yet, “John Nance Garner helped change the vice presidency from a mere ceremonial post to a position of some influence,” Hill wrote. “No modern vice president has ever been more influential with Senators and Representatives than John Nance Garner.” 

“Roosevelt, fully understanding Garner’s popularity and usefulness, sought out his vice president’s views at Cabinet meetings, and the Texan helped to pass much of the early New Deal legislation,” Hill added.

 

Indeed, Garner and fellow Texan Sam Rayburn, who was Garner’s successor as Speaker of the House were “at the apex of the New Deal power pyramid,” said Lionel V. Patenaude of the Texas State Historical Society. 

“But as the New Deal drifted toward welfare-state concepts, Garner demurred. By 1935, he began to refer to some or Roosevelt’s programs as ‘plain damn foolishness,’” Patenaude said. “By 1938, he was opposed to most of the New Deal proposals, especially those involving government spending.”

 

“Though Garner never openly acknowledged his split with Roosevelt, their mutual hostility continued,” Patenaude remarked. “Because of their mutual distrust, during the last two years of Roosevelt’s second administration, Garner opposed virtually everything the president wanted. In effect, he became ‘the leader and the brains of the opposition’ to the man with whom he had been elected.” 

Garner was appalled when Roosevelt began to hint at the possibility of an unprecedented third term as president. Garner declared his own candidacy for president in December 1939. The increasing instability in Europe, however, assured Roosevelt’s nomination and eventual election, with a new running mate – Henry A. Wallace of Iowa, former Secretary of Agriculture under Roosevelt. 

After the inauguration in 1941, Garner and his wife, Mariette Rheiner Garner, who was his personal secretary throughout his 38-year political career in Washington, D.C., boarded a train bound for Uvalde, Texas. They crossed the Potomac River for the last time.

Put Garner State Park in Texas on your bucket list

Floating down the crystal-clear Frio River is one of the premier attractions at Garner State Park in Uvalde County, Texas.

 

Located in the Texas Hill Country River Region, this is one of the most-visited state parks in the Lone Star State. Rated as “the most popular park in the system for overnight camping,” Garner State Park offers screened shelters, cabins and campsites for vehicles. 

These are perfect accommodations for travelers who may be attending the two solar eclipses in the skies over Uvalde County – on Oct. 14, 2023, and on April 8, 2024. Uvalde is uniquely located in the black-out paths for both eclipse events. 

Garner State Park has an interesting history. During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide jobs for young men under age 25 who were out of work. 

Citizens of Uvalde County scraped together enough money to acquire land and enlist the CCC to build a park in 1935. It was named after John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, who was U.S. vice president during the first two Roosevelt terms from 1933-41.

 

Cactus Jack called Uvalde County home. He came to Uvalde in 1890 as a young lawyer. Shortly thereafter, Garner was appointed to fill a vacancy as county judge. In the regular election in 1893, he defeated Mariette “Ettie” Rheiner. They were married in 1895.

Judge Garner was elected to the Texas state legislature in 1898. He ran successfully for a newly created Congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1903 and served continuously for 15 terms. 

Rep. Garner was recognized as a “quiet leader,” and during World War I, he became the liaison between President Woodrow Wilson and Congress. In 1931, Rep. Garner was selected as Speaker of the House. 

With the backing of California newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Garner, at age 63, became a candidate for president in 1932. At the Democrats’ national convention in Chicago, Garner had a lock on 90 votes from Texas and California on the first ballot.

 

William Randolph Hearst

New York Gov. Franklin Roosevelt, 50, was the front-runner with 666 votes, while former New York Gov. Al Smith, 58, received 202. Eight other candidates divided 196 votes. 

Roosevelt needed 770 votes to win the nomination. He edged closer to the “magic number” on both the second and third ballots. 

On the fourth ballot, Garner essentially gave his votes to Gov. Roosevelt, assuring him the nomination. As a result, Garner was offered the position of vice president, and he reluctantly accepted. 

In the 1932 general election, the Democrats’ ticket of Roosevelt-Nance steamrolled the incumbent Republicans, Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis.

 

What new Vice President Garner brought to the table in 1933 was 30 years of Washington, D.C., political experience. “Moreover, he was talented in other areas tangential to politics, such as whiskey drinking and poker playing,” said Lionel V. Patenaude of the Texas State Historical Society. 

“Garner was a personal friend of virtually every member of Congress. He was able to push bills through or bury them. One writer stated that Garner was ‘a mole rather than an eagle.’ A master at circulating on the Senate floor or buttonholing a friend, he was the ‘wise old man of Congress.’” 

“On most evenings after a legislative session, Garner would hold court over bourbon and branch water and counsel reluctant Congressmen,” Patenaude said. “He was in his element here, and most of his contemporaries agreed that his persuasive tactics made Garner the most powerful vice president in history.”